The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-04-23
SOME SAD FUNNY MEN.
Sketches of Great New York CaricaturistB-
How They Work.

How They Work.
New York Mail and Express.
At the Salmagundi dinner, the other night,
amid sixty of the joest souls imaginable, one
was far more sprighty and vivacious than ali
the rest. 1t might not surprise every one to hear
that this was E. W. Kemble. of the Century, one
of the humorous artists of the day but to one
who knows the dumb humorists of the times
the men who make fun in silence with their
pencils-it was extraordinary. Humorsts are
proverbially men of pathetic face and sober
mien, but of all the owlish gravity
I ever knew among men, these pencil humorists
have the most. Take Mast and Keppler, the
satrists, for instance. 1t is said that Keppler is
esteemed "a very bright talker in the German
colony. but neither he nor Mast is funny or in
any degree lively In English. Both about
fifty, and both have made fortunes and are TAX
ing things easy. Mast is a dressy, almost nattv,
little man. with face almost exactly like the
pictures he makes of himself. He is wrapped up
in domestic joys at his country home in Nor
ristown. Some of got him on his feet at
dinner in Montreal the other day. but he had
nothing to say. When ne talks at all. which is
in private, ne does extremely sensibly. Keep
pier is oddity: he likes to startle the town
with unconventional attire. He is apt to stride
through the streets with high boots, worn out
side of trousers so patched as to suggest Jersey
cloth, bell-crowned, turn-up German silk hat
and Spanish cloak wound round his body and
thrown over one shoulder He is a serious man,
and funny his pictures in Puck often are
their purpose is always serious. He is most in.
tcreStuR Witch AS talks OF MS past, particularly
of the days when he employ at SIS
week, making funny pictures for Frank Leslie,
and he and Frank Leslie fell out over five
dollar increase in his salary.
Keppler announced his determination to start
funny paper, and Leslie warned him that il he
did he would start one Just like it and drive him
out of business. Keppler took Schwarzmaun.
the foreman of LesIes printing Office. and they
together, with ST 500 in money. started the Ger
man edition of Puck 1t was success, and IL a
year or two the Eng ish edition was established.
| This remained feeble bantling until Keppler
published in it a startling picture OF scene on
/ Fifth avenue after the death Of a fashionable
abortionist. From that day it has fourished.
| Now no such pictures published, both Illus
/ trations and letter press have grown very re-
| 1ned and yet the paper gained $4,000 circulation
last year.
Look at some of the junior cartoonists Chas.
Jaw Taylor, whose fun is always original,
piauant and elevating. looks as sober as par
/ son when he is producing the funniest faces and
situations on paper. In company he is retiring
and quiet and his wit only scintilates among
those who know him very intimately. Taylor,
| by the way. is the only conspicuous one of his
| number who received art education. The
rest educated themselves Sober TAYLOR is
he is sxcelled in this respect by Mr.. Zimmerman.
| of Judge. than whom the most timid girl could
scarcely be more shy. Yet he can ne as auda-
cious and rollickng with his pencil as ever Will
lam R Travers with his lips He is from
the central part of this State. and made his way
upward from humble beginning. He 10 still III
the tbirties
E. W. Kemble, by the way. is son OF Cali
fornia Forty miner, and after a hard struggle at
tracted the interest Of Mark Twain, who got